Photo credit: Meghan MacKrous, courtesy of the National Music Centre

Piano, Electromechanical

Available for use in Recording Studios

Not currently on exhibit

Artifact TypePiano, Electromechanical

Designer Harold Rhodes 1910 - 2000

Datec. 1980

The Fender Rhodes pianos are a type of electromechanical instrument that, like an acoustic piano, generates sound with keys and hammers, but instead of strings, the hammers strike thin metal tines which vibrate between an electromagnetic pickup. They are considered “classics” and among the most iconic keyboard instruments of the 1960s and 70s, with notable users including The Doors, The Beatles, Stevie Wonder, Herbie Hancock, Oscar Peterson, Miles Davis, and Chick Corea. The instrument is still in high demand today, revered for its unique tone and portable nature.

Operation/FunctionThis particular artifact is an example of the 73-key Mark II Stage model of the Rhodes (formerly Fender Rhodes) electric piano series. The instrument has a compass of 73 notes (E through E), with the naturals made of wood and the accidentals made of black molded plastic. Each key corresponds with a tonebar assembly, which consists in a metal tine and tone bar combined via an adjustable spring as a tuning fork. The hammers, which are teardrop shaped, are constructed of wood and covered with Neoprene rubber at their tips. The instrument also contains built-in stereo tremolo with corresponding knob, a master volume knob, and an auxiliary 1/4” jack. There are no accompanying legs, amplification system, or sustain pedal on this particular artifact. A unique cosmetic feature is the instrument’s harp (used to refer to an instrument’s series of tone generators, typically strings, which emulate the curve of a harp in their varying lengths) top, which is flat with ridged sides to help support another instrument being placed on top.Cultural SignificanceThe Fender Rhodes electric pianos are among the most widely used electronic instruments in popular music. In addition to instruments such as the Wurlitzer 200, the Hammond B-3, and the Hohner Clavinet, they make up what are often referred to as the “classic” keyboard instruments of the 1960s and 1970s. Thanks to the combination of a portable and lightweight design and a unique sound, they remained among the most revered instruments of the era, employed by numerous musicians both in live and studio contexts. Their popularity has not waned significantly since the 1960s, with many musicians still desiring their tone and lauding their ease of use. Although the electric piano has perhaps not had as groundbreaking an impact on the development of music as the electric guitar did in the 1950s, its use has spanned multiple genres, with the most prevalent examples occurring in rock- and jazz-based compositions. Just as the electric guitar had been originally developed for use with jazz combos – amplification emerging as a technical rather than aesthetic necessity so that the instrument could be heard among a large group of instruments – the electric piano was first popularized in the jazz scene of the late 1950s, with musicians as varied as Ray Charles and Sun Ra featuring early instantiations of the instrument in recordings and performances. Although instruments such as the Fender Rhodes electric piano and Wurlitzer 200 were unique in their use of metal tonebars and reeds instead of strings, the percussive, bell-like sound generated by these instruments had been present for nearly a century prior in instruments such as the Dulcitone and celesta. The celesta in particular enjoyed extensive usage throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, revered for its whimsical sonic properties and scored in a range of classical and jazz compositions, such as Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker of 1892. Although the Fender Rhodes electric pianos employ a similar hammer mechanism to that of the conventional acoustic piano, their use of metal tines and tonebars gives it a highly distinct and idiomatic sound; as such, the instrument has maintained its reputation as a unique alternative to the piano. Harold Rhodes was a pioneer in music education and the design of instruments specifically suited to the functions of both teachers and students, inspiring similar developments by competing companies such as Wurlitzer. Many modern software sampler manufacturers have sought to emulate the sound and quality of the Fender Rhodes electric pianos. The Fender Rhodes moniker carried with it significant weight, with Leo Fender having introduced some of the most groundbreaking developments in music technology, including the first commercial solid-body electric guitar, the Telecaster, in 1950.Technological SignificanceWhen solid body electric guitars such as the Fender Telecaster and Gibson Les Paul emerged in the early 1950s, they revolutionized use of the instrument in popular music. Although iconic electric pianos such as the Fender Rhodes Mk I and Wurlitzer 200, which were produced in the late 1960s and early 1970s, were not quite as transformative, they certainly solidified a position as one of the most widely used keyboard instruments in popular music. The first electric pianos were designed in the 1920s, with one of the earliest examples emerging from the Berlin-based C. Bechstein piano manufacturers. Their Neo-Bechstein grand piano, which was developed in the late 1920s and produced into the early 1930s, removed the instrument’s soundboard and implemented a series of magnetic coils, essentially an early version of the pickup. Interestingly, the instrument also featured a built-in radio receiver and an external loudspeaker cabinet with an integrated record player; as such, the unit was meant to appeal to the commercial market as a sort of all-in-one home entertainment product. In the 1930s, inventor Benjamin Meissner developed an amplified vertical piano, patenting the pickup mechanism that was later used in most of the electric pianos of the 1960s and 1970s. Other early electric pianos include the Story & Clark Storytone of 1939, which weighed in at nearly half a ton. The most technologically innovative feature of electric pianos such as the Fender Rhodes is with respect to their use of variously fashioned metal bars instead of the strings that characterize a conventional piano. On account of this, these instruments can be seen as a closer relative to acoustic instruments such as the Dulcitone, celesta, and glockenspiel, all of which employ metal bars activated by hammers. The Dulcitone was the first of these instruments, designed and manufactured by Thomas Machell & Sons of Glasgow, Scotland in the 1880s. The instrument featured felt-covered hammers and a keyboard as well as a series of metal tuning forks as the tone generators. Unlike the strings of a traditional piano, which require a specific amount of maintained tension in order to stay in tune, the Dulcitone was far more stable in this regard. The celesta, effectively a keyboard-controlled glockenspiel, followed in 1886 from French organ builder, Auguste Mustel, and featured an improved resonating mechanism, allowing it to produce a much louder sound than the Dulcitone. As such, the instrument has been regularly used in a number of orchestral and chamber settings, by composers ranging from Tchaikovsky to Morton Feldman. The Fender Rhodes electric pianos directly continued this tradition, implementing an assembly that employs a metal tine and tonebar oriented as a tuning fork, however Wurlitzer electric pianos featured a modified tone generator design consisting in singular flat, tapered pieces of metal. These pieces of metal are more commonly referred to as reeds on account of their similar shape to the wooden reeds used in many woodwind and brass instruments, as well as those used in reed organs. Of course, the primary distinction between the Fender Rhodes and Wurlitzer 200 electric pianos, and predecessors such as the Dulcitone and celesta is that the former employ built-in electric amplification. As with most electromechanical instruments, this is achieved through the use of a set of pickups, which are types of transducers similar to microphones. A pickup consists in a permanent magnet (a single magnet that achieves the same effect of two polarized magnets) that maintains a constant electromagnetic field, and a coil of copper wire that is wrapped around the magnet. The tone-generating component of the electric musical instrument – in the case of the Rhodes/Fender Rhodes electric piano, the metal tine – is placed near the magnet. When the tone generator vibrates, a disturbance is created in the electromagnetic field, which in turn induces a voltage in the coil. This electrical signal is then sent to an amplification system, generally consisting in a preamplifier, amplifier, and loudspeaker. Most modern pickups come in the form of the humbucker pickup, which employs two coils in inverse phase so as to reduce the amount of extraneous noise or AC hum included in the signal. The first dedicated pickup was designed by Hawaiian steel-guitar player, George Beauchamp, in collaboration with Adolph Rickenbacker in the early 1930s. The use of pickups rendered any need for a hollow wooden soundboard or resonating structure obsolete in associated instruments, as reflected in the design of the solid-body electric guitar. Of course, the use of pickups also meant that the conventional tone of the acoustic instruments to which they were applied, such as guitars, pianos, and harpsichords, could be modified through the use of external effects pedals and amplification systems. In addition to those employing reeds and tonebars, electric pianos were also designed in a more conventional manner, integrating strings and pickups into a basic piano frame, as in the Yamaha CP-70, which is still required to maintain proper tension in the instrument’s strings. Other string-based electric pianos, such as the Hohner Clavinet, feature a more streamlined design and forego the piano frame altogether. In the late 1960s, Hohner also produced the Electra-Piano (not to be confused with the RMI Electrapiano), which features a similar reed-based tone generator to that used in the Wurlitzer 200 and hammer action to that used in the Fender Rhodes electric piano. Perhaps the most notable user of this instrument was John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin, who employed the instrument on tracks such as “Stairway to Heaven” and “Misty Mountain Hop” from IV (1971) and “No Quarter” from Houses of the Holy (1973), the latter of which featured the instrument being processed by an EMS VCS3 synthesizer to produce the warbling tremolo effect characteristic of the Fender Rhodes. Instruments such as the Hohner Pianet and Baldwin electric harpsichord are often referred to as electric pianos, however, strictly speaking, they ought not be classified with such instruments as they employ a plucked mechanism, similar to that of the harpsichord, rather than the striking mechanism that defines the piano. One unique aspect of the electric guitar is that its tone can be significantly altered through the use of multiple pickups and effects, making it in some cases unrecognizable from its acoustic predecessor. Although the same processing can be applied to electric pianos, instruments such as the Fender Rhodes electric pianos are recognized as already inherently offering an alternative sound to that of the traditional string-based piano. As such, when considered specifically in terms of sound, they are often viewed not primarily as a variation of the electric piano, but as an independent instrument with a distinct identity. The implementation of pickups into these instruments was vital not only in defining their sound, but also the nature of their external construction. With the necessity for a resonating soundboard and bulky supporting frame eliminated, electric pianos – and particularly those employing metal bars or reeds instead of strings – could be constructed to be much more compact and light weight. While the first electric pianos of the 1950s still relied on wood as the primary construction material, most models of the Fender Rhodes and Wurlitzer 200 electric pianos incorporated plastics, making the instruments cheaper, more durable, and significantly more portable. Although the Rhodes and Fender Rhodes electric pianos were not necessarily the most compact of electric pianos offered on the commercial market, they were certainly far more lightweight than many of the other classic keyboard instruments of the 1960s and 1970s, especially when compared to the excessively bulky electromechanical and combo organs of the era. Both the Fender Rhodes electric piano and its technological cousin, the Wurlitzer 200, share a similar sound in their use of metal bars, however the specific mechanisms behind their tone generator is markedly different, with the Fender Rhodes instruments employing something more similar to a tuning fork than the flat metal reeds used in Wurlitzer instruments. As with most musical instruments of the era, the earliest prototypes for Rhodes’ electric piano employed vacuum tubes. A vacuum tube, or valve as they are commonly called, is a device that directs the flow of electric current through a vacuum within a sealed container. They were used as a fundamental component of electronic technology throughout the first half of the twentieth century, until they were replaced by solid-state transistors and related devices in the 1950s and 1960s. All commercial models of the Fender Rhodes electric piano, including the Silver-Tops of 1965 and the Piano Bass of 1959 were transistorized. Inventor Harold Rhodes’ first instrument was the Pre-Piano, which was unveiled at the NAMM trade show in 1946. Following a merger with the hugely influential American instrument designer, Leo Fender, in 1959, the Fender Rhodes Piano Bass, which featured only 32 of the lowest notes of Rhodes’ electric piano, emerged. The first commercial Fender Rhodes electric pianos, dubbed the Silver-Tops, were introduced in 1965 when Fender Rhodes was subsumed by CBS Musical Instruments. These instruments employed a suitcase orientation, which consisted in the loudspeaker and amplification components of the instrument housed in a separate cabinet that sits underneath the tone-generating and keyboard unit. These were the only model to employ felt covers on the hammer tips. The Mark I was produced between 1970 and 1979, with several significant improvements emerging throughout the years. The Mark Is were offered in both 73- and 88-note compasses, as well as in both suitcase and stage models, the latter featuring a more portable design that removes the amplification and speaker cabinet and instead incorporates a smaller version directly into the tone-generating unit itself. The Raymac tines of the Silver-Top model were replaced with more reliable Torrington tines, and, in 1971, the felt covers of the hammer tips were replaced with Neoprene rubber. Although the Neoprene produced a slightly “squishier” feel, they were believed to be an improvement upon the felt due to the fact that the latter would often become imprinted with the shape of the tine with extended use, resulting in a loss of tonal clarity and control. The tips were also varied throughout the instrument’s range, with bass tips being slightly softer than treble tips. In 1972, the flat tonebars of earlier models were replaced with “twisted” steel bars that produce a cleaner sound emphasizing the fundamental and suppressing overtones, and, in 1973, the amplification system was updated to a Satellite Speaker package, which included two 100 W Peterson amplifiers (as opposed to the single 50 W amplifier of the Silver-Top model), as well as a stereo preamplifier. The Mark I models also implemented a stereo tremolo effect, essentially bouncing the signal between two adjacent speakers. In 1976, wooden hammers were replaced with plastic hammers, resulting in a lighter and more even action. The Mark II emerged in 1979 with a ridged flat-top, inspired by Dyno-My-Piano’s Chuck Monte, who cited that the design would allow users to stack other instruments on top, and a Haigler preamplifier/amplifier. The Silver-Top and Mark I models featured a top that was slightly rounded, making it impossible for anything to rest on top. Subsequent revisions implemented several other cosmetic changes to combat the increasing size and weight of the instrument, including several decreases in compass size. The final Fender Rhodes instrument (which, by that time, had simply become ‘Rhodes’) produced by CBS was the Mark V. Following Harold Rhodes reacquiring the rights to the piano in 1997, the Mark 7 was released in 2007, featuring a build similar in construction to the vintage Mark I and II models. Perhaps the most unique feature of Rhodes’ approach to the design of his tone-generating method was with respect to his use of the tonebar in addition to the metal tine. The tonebar served the purpose of adding resonance and shaping to the overall sound and, in many ways, was something of a progressive idea for the 1950s. Few other instrument manufacturers explored the way in which other objects could be used to alter the resonance of their instrument’s tone at the time, with one notable exception being Maurice Martenot, inventor of the Ondes Martenot, which employs a series of diffusing speakers that incorporate springs and metal plates to add in various harmonic content to the output signal. The Fender Rhodes electric pianos were mass produced at different costs throughout the 1960s and 1970s, which occasionally resulted in instruments varying significantly in construction quality. Users/PerformersThere are countless examples of both the Mark I and Mark II electric pianos – which were the two most widely used models produced under the Rhodes and Fender Rhodes monikers – in recorded and live music, spanning from the mid 1960s until the present, with most usage occurring in various rock-, soul-, and jazz-based genres. Unlike a good deal of most vintage equipment from the era, the Fender Rhodes electric pianos are unique in that they have been used extensively both by professionals and amateur musicians. Among the most recognizable albums and compositions to feature the instrument include: The Beatles’ “Get Back” from Let It Be of 1970 and “Don’t Let Me Down” from the Let It Be recording sessions of 1969, both of which were performed by Billy Preston, a frequent user of the instrument; Pink Floyd’s “Hey You” from the hugely successful The Wall of 1979 and “Shine On You Crazy Diamond, Pts. 6-9” from 1975’s Wish You Were Here; Peter Frampton’s “Baby I Love Your Way” from Frampton of 1975; Stevie Wonder’s “Isn’t She Lovely” from Songs in the Key of Life of 1976; and, The Doors’ iconic hits, “L.A. Woman” and “Riders on the Storm”, from L.A. Woman of 1971. The Doors’ keyboard player, Ray Manzarek, was also a regular user of the Fender Rhodes Piano Bass. Perhaps on account of its more mellow tonal quality (as compared with the Wurlitzer 200 and 200A electric pianos), the Fender Rhodes electric pianos found a particular niche within many jazz- and soul-based genres. Notable users of the instrument within this realm include Oscar Peterson, Pharaoh Sanders, Chick Corea, Peanuts composer Vince Guaraldi, and Herbie Hancock, who experimented with the inclusion of a wah pedal. One of the most prominent users of the Fender Rhodes electric piano was American trumpeter and composer Miles Davis (1926 – 1991), who began using the instrument extensively from the albums In A Silent Way (1969) and Bitches Brew (1970) onward.

Object number2003.06.02